In the Comments Section of our last post, our great friend Mouse Maestro announced plans for a series of Gottfredson posts for Unca Floyd's birthday month at his Blog!
You all know the drill... go over there and read them once they're up! I will certainly do the same!
As part of that exchange, I hoped he would do my favorite Gottfredson story - and I asked him to GUESS which one that might be... but why not open it up to ALL of you!
Especially for those who know me long and well... What IS my favorite Gottfredson story?
Cast your best-guess votes right here! It'll be fun to see what results!
See ya real soon!
My guess: "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot"
ReplyDeleteOkay! Anyone else wanna take a crack at it? I'll reveal it after a few more guesses.
ReplyDeleteLOL I know it's unoriginal but I was gonna say that Phantom Blot story too, but to be different I'll saayyyyy ... Oscar the Ostrich! No? OK fine, my final answer: the Death Valley story
ReplyDeleteGreat to see you back, JoeC!
ReplyDeleteCould that guess be the result of a not-so-subliminal hint at the very top of this post? …We shall see!
And, hey… what’s so unoriginal about the original appearance of The Phantom Blot, anyway?!
Nice seeing you too Joe! And LOL I swear I didn't notice the book title art above until you mentioned it! But the Blot story is such a classic it's tough to beat.
ReplyDeleteJoeC:
ReplyDelete...And after all the trouble I went through to place that “Death Valley” book image at the very top of the post as a near-perfect way to introduce Gottfredson, too! :-)
Just for the record, the Abbeville hardcover Mickey book is there because that was where I was *introduced* to Gottfredson, and was a still-rare-at-that-time revealing of a Disney comic creator's name!
So, images representing Gottfredson’s first stories and my first exposure to Gottfredson bookend this post! …Just another pullback of the TIAH curtain, for your reading pleasure!
And the Blot story IS indeed a classic that still influences many subsequent stories to THIS DAY! Pulling the whole thing together, it was in the Abbeville book that I learned that the Blot was created by Gottfredson in 1939 (!), and not a 1960s Paul Murry and Bob Ogle character that thrilled me since that fateful issue of WALT DISNEY’S COMICS AND STORIES of 1964!
The mere fact that I would eventually grow up to WRITE the character – and even employ one of my own original Blot gags from 1966-me in one of those translated stories – is a great example of how strange and wonderful life can be!
All this is a roundabout way of thanking you for casting a vote in our Gottfredson Guessing Game! Who else wants to take a shot?
Well, Joe, I'd be really hard-pressed to come up with a Gottredson story other than "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot" as your favorite, considering your fondness for the Blot... but if I had to think of some other adventure, then perhaps the debut of another villain would do? So... "The Atombrella and the Rhyming Man"?
ReplyDeleteThe Blot and Rhymey are both big faves of mine, T. and, even though he’s been used far more than the others, so is Pete! I’d also throw Emil Eagle in there, if he were a Gottfredson character.
ReplyDeleteBoth would be logical contenders, but I ain’t talkin’ yet! So, which one shall I put you down for?
If I have to choose only one, then Blot it is!
ReplyDeleteAnother Blot vote... Check!
ReplyDeleteMickey Mouse in Death Valley (no, wait, that's my favorite). I would guess The Blot, but knowing your sense of humor, it could easily be something from the Bill Walsh era, like The Rhyming Man story or any number of Eega Beeva stories.
ReplyDeleteBesides the Blot story, there is another one that seems perfectly plotted and certainly contains a lot of suspense. Plus, I love the way that It transitions from the conclusion of the adventure--it doesn't just end, but it pretty much shows every leg of the journey as Mickey and Minnie make their way back home. Plus, it had political ramifications that caused it to be banned in at least one European nation. Just to be different, I will vote for "Monarch of Medioka." (True confession: this is my for-real favorite of the Gottfredson tales.)
ReplyDeleteDeb:
ReplyDelete“Death Valley” is your favorite? Now, that explains why I put it at the top of this post, rather than to just subliminally influence Joecab! …Sometimes those psychic vibes get a tad mixed up!
One of the things I like best about our little Blogging community is that we’re not strangers. To one extent or another, we have a feel for who most of us are. For instance, my Phantom Blot fondness is well known by anyone who’s spent any time here. But I do indeed LOVE the overall feel/direction/vibe of the Bill Walsh era! Compared with Gottfredson Classic, it was (…as I’ve said on occasion, though maybe not on the Blog) “sixties TV before there *was* sixties TV”! All the wonderfully imaginative weirdness of the Irwin Allen shows, Batman ’66, the U.N.C.L.E. shows, Gilligan’s Island, Get Smart, the Addams and Munster shows – and, to a smaller extent, the great second season of Star Trek TOS… before the third season “dulled it out of existence”!
And, before the Gottfredson Library, there was so very little of it available to experience – mostly a handful that were remounted (or redrawn) as early WDC&S serials or Dell Four Colors, and any reprints of those that appeared over the years! Also the origin story of Eega Beeva, that I lobbied Gladstone Series I to print so I could finally see what that character was about, after being made aware of him in the Abbeville hardcover!
For the longest time, I was resigned to never seeing most of the Walsh/Gottfredson stuff, until our esteemed editor David Gerstein and Fantagraphics’ Gary Groth made the dream of a complete Gottfredson Library a reality! Indeed, I was apprehensive that the series *would even reach* the Walsh stories – but it did, and the world is better place for it!
All of this rambling is just my long-winded way of leading up to your Walsh theory being a good companion to your possible Blot vote!
So, pick one for me to record… The Phantom Blot, a specific Walsh era story, or even “Death Valley” in the hope of subliminally influencing *me*! …Gosh, I’m liking it more and more lately!
The voting will be open through the whole weekend!
Don't forget Hogan's Heroes! Great era for TV - witty, campy, and plain FUN shows! Thank God for MeTV!
DeleteScarecrow:
ReplyDelete“The Monarch of Medioka” is also a very interesting choice, as it was one of those redrawn (by the great – and sadly underappreciated – Bill Wright) Gottfredson serials referred to above! It might also take the prize as the LONGEST of the serials, running for a whopping 66 pages over SIX issues of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories (#117-122)!
When first reading it, in the same six segmented chapters reprinted in Walt Disney Comics Digest #40 (…where I’ll presume you first read it as well), I thought… This is truly EPIC! Later, Gladstone would come along and make a great thing greater still!
“Medioka” sounds like the name of a place Bill Walsh would have come up with, though it preceded his tenure on the Mickey Mouse newspaper strip! Doubtless, Walsh would have thrown in lots of gags about the kingdom being generic, dull, …and mediocre! A malaise for which Mickey would have been the cure! …But, that’s just my writer’s brain kicking-in, and the fact that it instinctively and effortlessly gravitated toward Walsh is interesting in itself!
So, I’ll put you down for that “most non-mediocre” of Mouse tales, “The Monarch of Medioka”!
Why don't I know this?
ReplyDeleteI'd have long assumed it was "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot," too—but I guess it could be "Island in the Sky," which is in that first Abbeville book, and where the redraw was published enough times in the Gold Key era that some version of it was never very far away from audiences...
Trying to pick a favorite Gottfredson story (my own or someone else’s who knows them all) is like trying to pick a favorite Barks story or a favorite Looney Tunes short…there are so many good ones that it’s hard to pick just one. I think one of the reasons “Death Valley” sticks out in my mind is that it was the first real attempt at doing a continuing storyline in the Mickey Mouse strip. (Also probably because it was the first one in that Abbeville Press book). The desert island continuity was mostly just a string of gags that don’t actually tell a story. Death Valley has spots where the writers don’t seem to know where to go, but after a few bits of business, find a thread to hang on to and move forward. We also get to see a number of artists come and go from the strip before Gottfredson ends up being the main Mouse man.
ReplyDeleteI can’t think of a specific Bill Walsh story that I think would be your favorite, so I’ll join the crowd who voted for “The Phantom Blot”.
Mouse Maestro writes:
ReplyDelete“Don't forget Hogan's Heroes! Great era for TV - witty, campy, and plain FUN shows! Thank God for MeTV!”
Other than sports, almost EVERYTHING I watch (…if I’m not watching it on DVD/Blu-ray) is on one iteration or another of MeTV! MeTV, MeTV+, or MeTV Toons! …I could never have imagined a world where even VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (a biggie for me, that I watched since its 1964 debut) would be on SEVEN DAYS A WEEK!
The sixties was – and always will be – my favorite era of television! And I had the privilege of seeing most of it live-as-it-happened!
David writes:
ReplyDeleteDavid writes:
“Why don't I know this?”
I dunno! As my longtime friend – and editor – you’d probably have the best vantage point from which to guess! And I would say that both your guesses are valid ones. But, then again, so are everybody else’s! …We’re all about “big-tent-type-inclusion” ‘round here!
Perhaps, as with Barks, there IS no “bad Gottfredson”, but some are just better than others! …And that’s what made those guys so special!
That said, another contest, for another day, might be “What Is My LEAST Favorite Gottfredson Story?” …But I’m not even sure I HAVE one!
From the classic writers/plotters like Osborne and DeMaris, to the more modern madness of Bill Walsh, I can’t think of a bad one in the lot!
For Barks, some might be tempted to cite “Interplanetary Postman”… but I could easily see Walsh doing a Mickey and Eega Beeva take on that – and I have long had a “mentally-written” version of it for Freakazoid – where The Lobe sends the fateful letter to the planet Venus to get rid of Freakazoid, so he can go on the crime spree of the century! And does ol' pink-squishy-head get HIS in the end!
To REALLY digress from Gottfredson for just another sentence or two (depending on how you might split your infinitives – or sumpthin’), that would be the first three-fourths of the Freakazoid comic issue that I have fully mentally-written (…with a caption box saying something like “With sincerest thanks – or sincerest apologies – to Unca Carl!”, followed by a short original backup that goes to a very fun place!
Keep on guessin’, folks… we got all weekend!
That is a GREAT point, Deb!
ReplyDeleteIt would certainly be quite a task to pick a favorite Barks story, Looney Tunes short, or Gottfredson story (Walsh, or pre-Walsh) because they ARE so great as a whole!
Now, perhaps it’s because I spend way too much time swimming in this stuff, but I *do* have a favorite Barks story, Looney Tunes short, and Gottfredson story (Walsh, *and* pre-Walsh)!
I also have a favorite Non-Barks Dell/Gold Key Donald story, a favorite Non-Barks Dell/Gold Key Mickey story (…and I think I’ve made it pretty clear what the Mickey is), a favorite Non-Barks Dell/Gold Key Scrooge story, favorite TV episodes of The Flintstones, Huckleberry Hound, Scooby-Doo, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Star Trek TOS, Batman ’66, The Outer Limits, Star Trek TNG, Kolchak the Night Stalker, a favorite horror movie, a favorite non-horror movie, and those for lots of my other favorite things. Sometimes it a clear single favorite, but more often it’s a “Top Three”, or maybe a “Top Five”, but even among those, there’s usually one that rises above the rest!
And, hey… just because you mentioned it, when I reveal that “favorite Gottfredson story”, I will reveal my favorite Barks story and Looney Tunes short as well!
And, with Deb and David, that’s two more Blot votes!
Great Snakes! I've really got to read some Gottfredson someday. On my bucket list... on my bucket list...
ReplyDeleteAs someone who's never read Gottfredson, perhaps I shouldn't cast a vote. But I'm gonna do so anyway. As they say, "Vote early, vote often!" :)
So... just to be different, I'm gonna go with "March of the Zombies."
Blot would seem obvious, but I'll cast another vote for Island in the Sky to look more interesting. Can't go wrong siding with David, can I? And you did go out of your way to point out that you like Pete a great deal, right alongside the more fantastical Blot or Rhyming Man…
ReplyDelete(I do wonder what your favorite Looney Tunes short is. I'm not sure what *my* favourite one is. It would be terribly obvious to say Duck Amuck or Duck Dodger, wouldn't it? As slightly more oddball picks go, I do have a soft spot for Transylvania 6-5000, though I wouldn't actually rank it over those two.)
Sergio, you write:
ReplyDeleteGreat Snakes! I've really got to read some Gottfredson someday. On my bucket list... on my bucket list...
Yes, you (and *anyone* else who has yet to read Gottfredson) must do so someday! Preferably before “the bucket” is even a far-off blip on that great cosmic radar! After all, you don’t wanna have to rush through so much great stuff, rather than take the time to savor it!
Floyd Gottfredson was to Mickey Mouse what Carl Barks was to Donald Duck, but with one big difference, he virtually *created* the “funny-animal adventure” genre (at which Barks would later excel) – unless you count Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat, which was more loosely and fancifully plotted but a true classic nonetheless! Both Gottfredson and Messmer worked their miracles in the only option open to them, the syndicated newspaper comic strip, where they established continuities for their respective characters – both of which would eventually migrate in reprint form to those new-fangled comic-type-books!
Once comic books began to hit their stride, Carl Barks joined the party with original stories, which, I presume, you are enjoying presently! And, I must admit, I envy you your journey of discovery that lies ahead – and hope this humble Blog has contributed at least something to that wonderful journey!
Total digression: That journey never really stops (unless you intentionally set your mind to doing so) as, even now, I will occasionally discover “new things” or “things I should have read way-back-when”! I wish the same for you!
“So... just to be different, I'm gonna go with ‘March of the Zombies’.”
I would definitely call that vote “different”, Sergio, as there never was a story with that title. That was just the title David assigned to that particular volume of his historically wonderful “Floyd Gottfredson Library of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse” (…or whatever the official name of that series was), but good try! Shows you’re doing research! We admire research ‘round here! :-)
There’s a LOT of great stuff in there, as you can see at THIS GCD LINK, including a text piece by yours truly on the change in tone of the Mickey Mouse syndicated newspaper comic strip, to the wonderfully weird tales by Bill Walsh (…seen his name a bit lately?) who wrote it until the end of the daily continuities about 12 years later, and who wrote the gag-a-day strips that followed.
Just for the record, I’m not sure anyone ever really covered that particular ground in any real detail before, but that’s what I tried to do in my essays for that series. Concentrate on stories, or overall general aspects of the strip as a whole, that I don’t recall getting much prior coverage! You, know… the kinda stuff that *I* would liked to have read during my own “journey of discovery”… and, occasionally – perhaps more often than one might think, I *still* find stuff like that in the works of others! …Ain’t this hobby grand?
I have a story about that text piece that I hope to tell in a future Blog post but, for now, ON WITH THE VOTING!
Achille:
ReplyDeleteAs much as I love doing ANYTHING with the Blot and, The Rhyming Man being the TOUGHEST (yet fun) character to write translated from Italian – and set to rhyming in English, I enjoy writing Pete the most! Doesn’t mean he’s my favorite Mickey villain, having been done so many times in the past, but he is my favorite to WRITE! There’s just so much comedic stuff you can do with a low-class lout like him! And, while I must strive to stick to the original meaning of the plot (especially with such talented creators as Casty and Scarpa), his unique dialogue is all mine!
So, all three are good guesses… but, then again, aren’t they all?
A favorite Looney Tunes short is very hard to choose! Mine is more likely one of those “Top Three” situations I mentioned, and could easily be extended to “Top Five” – maybe even “Top Ten”! But I *do* have one that I think is so perfect that it becomes THE favorite!
The remaining two of the “Top Three” are also great, but not “perfect”! They both rate spots 2 and 3 due to great endings!
Since I’ve also been asked, off the Blog, about a favorite Barks story (…also a tough choice, but there IS one out of a “Top Three”), once the weekend is over, I may do both “Favorite Looney Tunes” and “Favorite Barks” together in a post on Monday, and “Favorite Gottfredson” in a post to close it out on Tuesday!
…How’s that for celebrating our return?!
And my, isn’t “Transylvania 6-5000” an unconventional choice?! I actually love it too, just for being so… er, um, …“unconventional” and so late in the game! Same for “A Witch’s Tangled Hare”, but neither one is in my “Top Three”!
For some reason, I always remembered it being “The Gleam”. That one’s up there for me, too, although I really do think “Outwits the Phantom Blot” or “Foreign Legion” is mine.
ReplyDelete"Foreign Legion" is my personal favorite, Thad. We share great taste!
DeleteAll three are great guesses, and great stories, Thad!
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I’d say that “Foreign Legion” and “The Gleam” don’t get nearly enough due for the masterpieces they are! Pete, in particular, is at his best in “Foreign Legion”!
Gotta love his alias as “Beau Chest”, as well as his “cockeyed camel” exclamation!
Joe,
DeleteFor my money, "Foreign Legion" has my favorite characterization of Mickey. Practically alone and trapped in a situation where his arch-rival has chain of command over him, he retains his sturdy commitment to his duty.
Like "The Gleam", "Foreign Legion" is another one of those hidden gems (...Please forgive the "Gleam gag") that sorely deserves greater recognition!
DeleteJust for kicks, here’s a 2014 BLOG POST I did on “The Gleam” and the significance of its place on the Gottfredson timeline! …Enjoy!
ReplyDelete…It’ll save me the trouble of writing (…and YOU, the trouble of READING) my usually lengthy new text about our favorite hypnotic jewel thief for this Comments Section! :-)
I absolutely love "The Gleam," even if it's not among my top favorites. But it has a special place in my memory. It was one of the first Gottfredson stories printed and distributed in proof form—by King Features—not on strong, slick paper like most newspaper continuities before it, but on mealy, porous, thinner stock, the use of which was apparently necessitated by World War II. As a direct result, Disney's surviving proof sets were in loathsome condition when I first had them shot for an anticipated Gemstone reprint in 2005. The ink comprising Mickey's and Minnie's black fur—and the dark black backgrounds constantly seen when fancy parties' lights went out—had partly scraped off the page and sprinkled over the surrounding artwork. It was a uniquely awful mess amid the other stories of the period.
ReplyDeleteFor this reason our planned reprint got delayed and delayed, with other stories prioritized before it until I had time to clean it all up. But it was me or that story, dammit! Eventually a few panels even needed to be sourced from an otherwise muddier remounted version made for WDCS in 1947.
But we got there. Curse you, Dudley Mousegomery!
And JUST ANOTHER REASON, ladies and gentlemen, why our esteemed editor is a national treasure to us Disney comic readers! …Or SHOULD BE!
ReplyDeleteHe doesn’t just go “the extra mile”, he goes “the extra HUNDRED miles”!
Why, just the stuff that *I know about* from working with him speaks volumes… so, imagine, what all the “other stuff” must be!
Sincere praise for he who makes the “above and beyond” an everyday routine!
Take a well-deserved bow, David! Tough, though it may seem sometimes, it is all appreciated by us lucky readers… whether we know it, no not!
It’s Monday, and the Gottfredson voting is closed! Stay tuned (or, Blogged?) for “Favorite Looney Tunes Short” and “Favorite Carl Barks Story” posts, both leading up to our anxiously awaited "Favorite Gottfredson" reveal!
ReplyDeleteI’ve had (…and will continue to have) great fun with this “return to Blogging” stunt, and hope you have too!
And, just because the VOTING is closed, doesn’t mean the same applies to Comments Section! Keep ‘em coming, if you’re so inclined! We appreciate ‘em all!
As long as we're going there: the single most complex daily-strip serial ever to need restoration and color for a comic-book-format reprint was, of course, "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley," where Disney only had about half the story in original King Features proofs; there was no other source for such early proofs (King itself included), so the remaining strips had to be restored from whatever could be found in better shape for each one—relettered foreign masters or 1930s American newspapers.
ReplyDeleteThe restoration project on this story quite predated my involvement. It was begun by Byron Erickson in 1989 when he first planned to reprint it during Gladstone I, only to find that Disney's material was incomplete. A recovery process involving San Francisco Academy of Comic Art guru Bill Blackbeard began, but couldn't be completed before the end of Gladstone's license.
Bob Foster picked up the project in 1991, when an album collecting "Death Valley" was announced by Disney Comics, Inc. But the sheer breadth of the continued cleanup and acquisition work blew out Bob's budget, forcing his team to stop. (Remember, "Death Valley" was—like "Medioka"–one of the very longest stories.)
In 2005, John Clark and I located Bob's work in the Disney morgue and began to continue it, with Sue Daigle-Leach doing a lot of cleanup—and we got as far as actually announcing the book as a Disney Treasures album. Wow, an Amazon link still exists:
https://www.amazon.ca/Walt-Disney-Treasures-Mickey-Valley/dp/1603600469
Sue got about 40% of the way through coloring the story, and she and I finished cleaning about 75% of it. But again the budget crunch was our enemy and work had to be stopped.
In 2011, the raw b/w strip masters were used for the FGL presentation at Fantagraphics, but some still weren't as clean as would have been needed to complete the coloring for a remounted album version.
Finally in 2017 we were able to budget and complete the album version for Mickey's 90th Anniversary Collection. The cleanup on the later strips was insanely expensive—but affordable *because* so much previous work had already been done and paid for over the years dating back to 1989.
That's 28 years!
In the end, Sue Daigle-Leach could only color just under half the story, with the late, great Scott Rockwell spelling her on the rest. Poor Scott passed about a year after its publication, making it not only a great achievement but his final long-form Disney work.
I'm glad he was still with us to be a part of it. Such a great guy, and one of the best artists working in our hobby.
David:
DeleteI'm speechless (...or whatever the Blogging equivalent may be)! WHAT A JOURNEY!!! Once again, you've enlightened us all! Thank you!
I started writing a long comment yesterday with some thoughts I had recently about Gottfredson and Walsh. I wound up not finishing it and missed my chance to vote… but since you haven’t revealed your choice yet on this blog… I’m gonna sneak a vote in for “Island In The Sky” for the reasons david outlined. Stay tuned for another comment with Mouse musings on Gottfredson!
ReplyDeleteRyan:
DeleteSince you began your comment yesterday, before the voting officially closed, I will “open the door and let [you] in”, with great admiration for the works of Paul McCartney!
I don’t care if anyone hollers “Voter Fraud!”, my decision is final… because I’m just an old softie! :-)
I do like "Foreign Legion", which has the distinction of being the first Gottfredson story I ever read (in its French translation)!
ReplyDeletePlease, please, please forgive me... but I just can't help myself!
DeleteSo, you're saying that the version you read was the (please, please, please forgive me, again...) "French Foreign Legion" ...Slinks away, but does so with a smile!
Happy 121st Birthday to Floyd!
ReplyDeletehttps://themousemaestro.blogspot.com/2026/05/happy-121st-birthday-to-floyd.html
And many happy returns… that is happily returning to read Gottfredson’s comics over and over!
ReplyDeleteHERE’S that link!
Go there and “happily return” here, for having checked it out!